Visa Pay
VisaPay is a payments-as-a-service platform designed to simplify digital transactions across Africa. I led the end-to-end UX strategy for this product, from research and prototyping to testing and design governance — with a focus on building trust, accessibility, and adoption among unbanked and underbanked users.
Our work culminated in a major rollout in Sudan in partnership with Zain Sudan and Faisal Islamic Bank. But the real story begins upstream: in local markets like Tanzania, Uganda, and the DRC, where our ethnographic insights shaped everything from onboarding language to the app’s visual structure.
Problem Statements
Visa was expanding its presence in mobile-first economies, but the behavioral gap between offline cash habits and digital wallets was still too wide. Many users lacked trust in digital tools, had low brand recognition of Visa outside of cards, and struggled with poor UX flows designed without local context.
Our challenge was twofold:
Create a mobile-first financial product that was intuitive, trustworthy, and inclusive for first-time digital users.
Equip Visa and its banking partners with a repeatable UX system that could scale across markets and remain locally relevant.
Research
We conducted in-field ethnographic research in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, and Uganda. Our goal was to understand not just what people did, but why they did it — and where existing tools fell short.
Key methods included:
1:1 moderated usability testing in Kinshasa and Lubumbashi
Simulated P2P, onboarding, and e-commerce tasks
Language: French, contextualized to local banking terms
Personas: entrepreneurs, salaried professionals, mobile-first users
Key Insights:
Visa brand = card, not wallet. Most users didn’t associate Visa with local digital finance.
Banking = physical branch. People still expected to “go to the bank” to start any financial process.
Security & simplicity were top emotional triggers. Transparent terms and SMS confirmations increased trust.
QR codes & top-up flows were misunderstood and needed onboarding education and incentives.
“Super App” expectations emerged — users desired many tools, but didn’t understand their functions.
Persona
Name: Amina
Age: 34
Occupation: Self-employed shop owner
Tech Experience: Confident with WhatsApp and M-Pesa
Pain Points: Doesn’t trust digital tools easily, unsure of what Visa Pay does, confused by onboarding steps
Goals: Send money to family, receive payments from customers, avoid long lines at bank
Emotional Drivers: Trust, control, ease, transparency
User Flow
We mapped and designed new full flows for:
New user onboarding (wallet vs. bank confusion)
Wallet top-up (via card and bank account)
Send money (P2P and contact book integration)
Request money and receive
e-Commerce card usage
Agents onboarding
Cash in/ out
Security layers (PIN, biometric, SMS alerts)
The highest-friction steps were during onboarding and top-up, where misaligned mental models (bank vs. wallet) and unfamiliar terms (e.g., CVV, referral code) created drop-off points.
Low-Fidelity Mockups
We developed multiple low-fidelity wireframes to:
Split onboarding into manageable steps.
Test variations in bank linking language and card addition clarity.
Simplify wallet categorisation and screen hierarchy.
Emphasise wallet—not Visa—branding on key touchpoints.
Wireframes were sketched and prototyped in Figma for iterative feedback loops with product teams and regional stakeholders across 5 countries.
User Interviews
Conducted 15+ moderated sessions in French across Kinshasa and Lubumbashi.
Behavioural Observations:
Many users thought they were opening a new bank account, not a wallet.
Consent pages and ID verification created anxiety around data misuse.
PIN creation gave a strong sense of control and safety.
Users preferred clarity over features. A stripped-down interface was perceived as more trustworthy.
Gamification and SMS confirmations increased motivation and perceived legitimacy.
High-Fidelity Design
I led the end-to-end design of the Visa Pay app — defining layout systems, UI components, flows, and motion behaviors.
Key visual strategies included:
Simplified iconography and “clean first-load” home screen
Clear fee breakdowns and transaction receipts
Dual currency wallet display logic
Localization of terminology and color language
Bank-backed visual trust cues: “Secured by [local bank]”
We followed a design-led governance model I co-created, pushing for design-first decisions in a traditionally product-led Visa context.
Key Metrics We Tracked
From product analytics and experience governance strategy
Onboarding:
Drop-off rate by screen
Time to first successful top-up
Onboarding completion rate (target: +15%)
Retention:
DAU/MAU ratio
Feature adoption rates (send, top-up, request)
Churn rate post-onboarding (7 and 30 day)
Transactions:
Success rate of “Send Money” flow
Average transaction time
Error rate during P2P and top-up
Other:
Session length
CTA drop-off (wallet top-up and send)
Customer support requests per feature
Success Rates
Evolution of the Product
Following the successful rollout in Sudan and early pilot markets, Visa Pay evolved into:
A white-label wallet solution for banks and telcos across Africa
An SDK that partners could integrate into their own apps
A modular design system and behavioral UX playbook to enable consistent, user-centric scaling across culturally diverse markets
My contribution
Designed and led the ethnographic, desktop and field research
Directed of the entire end-to-end UX/UI process. From concept and wireframes to the final user experience and interface.
Set a precedent for how behavioural design could shape product development—not just in interface design, but in how Visa collaborates with its clients to co-create financial tools that change lives.